Hello! My name is Lori and my wedding date is November 22, 2008. And I have a vent!

My fiance live, go to school, and work 70 miles away from the city we're getting married in. Our parents both live there, as do most of our friends. Anyway, the two wedding chapels we are interested in will only make appointments to look at the chapels during weekdays. I understand that these places have weddings during the weekends, but I'm so annoyed that I'm going to have to take a sick day off work to go look at these places. Could they not let us come early on a Saturday or a Sunday evening?? Argh. It's just so frustrating planning a wedding in a city I do not live in.

Oh, and I have to take time off work to go look at dresses because there is ONE wedding/prom dress store in my small town. It's called Formal Fantasy. I cannot bring myself to shop there because of the name alone, let alone the stories I've heard about them.

So this is lame. And I've only been working here since January. I get one vacation day a month and two sick days a month. So I need to build up my time for our honeymoon, plus since I work at a state university that closes for a week or so during Christmas/New Years, they take two mandatory vacation days from us at the end of the year. So out of my 12 vacation days this year, two are already gone, leaving me with 10. Five days (work days) at least for the honeymoon. And I'd like to take off a couple of days before the wedding just to chill and relax and go to the city we're getting married in to take care of last minute stuff.

Anyway. I'm frustrated and annoyed and I feel better writing it out. :-) Any tips, advice, or comments are welcome, this seems like a nice place.

Yeah - I'll admit that. But I tried the other approaches and they didn't work. All the "bride" advise about smiling and politely thanking them for their comments wasn't getting me anywhere. Tried talking directly to FH for over a week. Still nowhere. The wedding simply wouldn't happen unless everyone started working on solutions instead of focusing on problems. I had no other choice but to quit.

Whatever, it worked. Yesterday, got a call from my Dad apologizing for his behavior and offering anything to help - including $$$. Got a call from bridesmaid (FSIL) who muddled through the problems and now has a clear picture of what's going on in his side of the family. Hopefully she can get things moving there. FH publicly dedicated a very sweet song to me on myspace and brought a new company "chachki" with the company logo on it (his last name) to me last night and asked me to take on his last name (it was like he was proposing all over again- very sweet even if it was a tape measure LOL).

I'm starting to feel better about things. Not completely, but the anger is subsiding.

See my previous post for an overview of the problems but add in my FH has vetoed every location brought to him, invited more people that we have allotted for both of us (leaving NO room for my friends/family), discounted my objection to having the ceremony on a public CRAZY buzy beach on labor day weekend, two of my four bridesmaids (his sisters) are non responsive to the MOH on anything, and so on and so on.

Did I mention that I'm footing the entire bill?

Why would I want to spend this amount of money on an event that is, apparently, void of any consideration to me??? I mean any consideration WAHTSOEVER.

Now I'm out, he's floundering trying to pull it together, we're not talking to our families.

Q. Can you have your wedding at a location that is convenient for me?A. No, it is impossible for us to be in six locations at the same time. That's right, count 'em...six. That is the number of alternate locations suggested to us so far in efforts to make to various guest lives easier.

Q. Can you change the date to accomodate my opinions/schedule?A. No. The date of August 31 has been chosen partly because it is a 3 day holiday to allow an extra travel day for our guests. Also, this date has been chosen for personal reasons that do not require explanation or justification to anyone with the exception of J and myself. notes: (A) At any of the six referenced locations mentioned above, their will be travel required by a large number of guests. (B) We have received requests to move this date both earlier and later - again, it is impossible for us to be in six different locations over numerous dates.

Q. Can I invite additional guests to the event?A. No. Input has been requested from key family members and will be taken into consideration. The final decision will be made by J and myself based on budget and space allowance. This includes pets.

Q. How much will this cost me?A. We have done everything in our power to reduce the costs to guests including considerations as to location, ability to partial pay for accomodations, ability to pay for meals in addition to the reception dinner/lunch, wedding party attire, special entertainment for children, etc. As it stands now, due to the overwhelming amount of input regarding how attendance to this event affects our guests in all areas mentioned in the above questions, we no longer have the financial ability to provide such assistance. Information regarding area hotel options will be made available with the invitations (as with most weddings) and it will be up to each individual guest to arrange their accomodations where they choose. If you feel that attending our wedding will be to great of a financial burden, please feel free to decline the invitation.

Q. Aren't you being "hardheaded". You need to "compromise". (Yes, we have heard both of these statements.)A. May we take a moment to remind everyone that this is J and S's wedding. Not anyone else's. So many compromises have been made at the requests of our guest based on their opinions that we no longer are even close to our dream wedding weekend. We are paying for, coordinating, and inviting our guest to join in making this a great experience and special day for us. At this point, anything less than happiness and support in helping in that direction, and that direction alone, can not be accepted.

Your mom loved our engagement pictures, and I need to order more now since she took 70% of them. she and I had a nice lunch, and I discovered she thinks my dissertation topic will alienate your grandmother--lovely. And after lunch at a new restaurant in River Ranch, but before coffee at CC's, we stopped at a new boutique, and your mom bought two almost identical scarves. She gave one to me "so she can borrow it," which means she really wanted both for herself but for whatever reason didn't feel justified in buying both for herself. Cool. I like the scarf, and it was on mega sale (from $48 to $15) so not an unacceptable gift.

Lunch with your mom was fun, but at 3:40 I put my foot down. I'd spent at least an hour trying to get her to focus on the menu and she finally noticed the paper with the breakdown of each dish, and then she starts talking about getting opinion from x amount of relatives in order to make everyone happy, and I said "STOP." If you want that many people's input then we are wasting my valuable time (except I was nicer) putting a menu together and FYI: no one will be disappointed that we didn't get ____ food unless you ask them do you want ____? and then that food gets voted down. Then she finally heard and it registered to her that I'd already put a menu together, which I'd told her three times on the phone. So, I think it's settled now. And I would personally kill your aunt Jackie for freaking your mom.

Apparently all the wasted effort I was forced to exert in checking out the country club and all the blah blah from your mom was due to your aunt bitching that I was taking over and possibly getting your mom ripped off. I am so overworked and trying to do the best I can. Oh, and another sister of your mom's was like "Is she (me) doing everything?" And my answer is just "yes" because your mom won't use the internet and insists that I call the vendors for her, so yes, I am doing everything, then your mom says she feels bad. Fuck that. Feel bad? I will gladly do everything to make sure it gets done, just as long as your family stops talking shit about me for it. What she needs to do is tell everyone else when to show up and otherwise nothing is their fucking business unless they are doing something so I don't have to do it. I would gladly let them do anything if it meant I could not do and instead worry about fucking graduating.

And no, my family is not doing the same thing as yours. No shit whatsover is being pulled so far. My sister knows when she gets married my mom will spend at least as much on her, and since she'd my MOH, she has no complaints since I've asked her to do nothing. Perfect.

And your mom has insisted that wine be available at the rehearsal dinner. Fine. I give up because I have already spent all the engery I will spend trying to get that not to happen. But I will not listen to one word from my mom about it. No. I will direct all negativity to your mom whose decision that is. Don't be surprised if my mom fucking walks out of the dinner when she sees wine poured. I don't care what my mom fucking does about it, and I will not try to stop my mom, because I have said all I can trying to get this to be a dry affair[FYI: my mom is totally against drinking at all whatsoever and she won't even eat at a restaurant if the only seating is in the bar, she's so against drinking, and it religious, and her religion tells her the right thing would be to walk out of that rehearsal dinner. I personally would never dare her on that. I drink, but she doesn't know it, nor need she ever. Not because I am ashamed, but because I respect her enough not to offend her intentionally, but not enough to live my life as a lie just to suit her. But I'd gladly live the lie through my wedding events to satisfy her].

I think (impossible to be sure since FMIL had no recollection of my showing her the colors for the wedding over Christmas, and it still hasn't clicked to her that my ankle was recently sprained) that your mom finally heard me say that Maggiano's was the nicest and least expensive place I checked out. The good thing is that at least we don't have to pay for the rehearsal dinner, and I think your mom will derive a lot of pleasure in getting to take credit for it because it'll be really nice. I only care that the dinner happens at all, which is why I have done everything that I've done. I wish you were here though. I think if you were more involved your aunt never would have pitched her hissy fit.

Dear Grandma,I appreciate the fact that your are not so well as you want to be and that coming to my wedding is a huge inconvenience to you but seriously it's time to stop reminding me. In addition I do not care if use your wheelchair, I do not care if you wear a dress or pants, I do not care that you will not be at the brunch the next day, and I most especially do not care if you give me a gift and if you want to give me a gift I don't care what it is! Please do not ask me any of these questions again. I have answered them all at least three times and I do not care to answer them again, or to endure your never ending guilt trip on any of these subjects.

I'm so flipping tired that I forgot what I had to vent about in the time it took the page to load. But (and I say this here only because I left weddingplans ) I think one of my friends is gonna bake the cake for me so I'll get a cake for a fraction of the cost !!!!!!!!!!!